


Dead Unicorns

by thegirlwiththemouseyhair



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Dark Comedy, M/M, Minor Character Death, Threesome, burying the body au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2586410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/pseuds/thegirlwiththemouseyhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas and Philip's experimentation with a third goes very, very badly. Could be Pamuk, could be another man with a similar problem. Basically, I wanted to adapt one of the "bonding over burying a body" prompts I've seen in a few places. (Happy belated Halloween? It's morbid...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Unicorns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daredevilmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredevilmoon/gifts), [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



“You sure know how to pick ‘em,” Thomas said, hefting the shovel. It was _very_ familiar, talking to Philip as if they were equals, but their intimacy didn’t require much in the way of social niceties, and they had even less need of all that rubbish now.

He saw Philip grimace in the lamplight. “I seem to recall you being as keen on this idea as I was…”

Thomas had been. He was no virgin when he and Philip met – far from it – yet he had never introduced a third person into any of his encounters with previous lovers. Philip was adventurous. It was _usually_ a good thing – a delicious thing – except, apparently, when it went disastrously wrong and resulted in burying bodies in the middle of the night.

“You still picked him,” Thomas insisted.

To Philip’s credit, he had found himself the oldest clothes he possessed and the keys to the gardener’s shed to get a spare shovel. He was a little out of breath from his exertions ( _not the exertions we’d hoped for,_ Thomas thought), but he was more help than Thomas would have expected of someone so well born.

“Well, how was I to know?” Philip countered. “You don’t exactly send someone for a medical examination before doing it, you know. Anyway, you’re lucky I sent everyone away from the house for the weekend.”

That was true, at least. They’d managed the body well enough between them and had dug a semblance of a grave in the remotest part of the Crowborough grounds, tucked into the shelter of a high stone wall.

“I know,” Thomas said as he dumped another shovel full of earth into the grave. Then his face and stomach twisted; he began to laugh and had to support himself on the shovel as if it were a walking stick so he wouldn’t double over.

“It’s not funny,” Philip snapped. “I can’t have an inexplicable guest turn up in one of the spare bedrooms; you know how that would look for both of us.”

“It–” Thomas cleared his throat to stifle another laugh, only for it to explode out of him despite his best efforts. “I know that–” he swallowed hard – “but I think we’re doing all right; we make good grave diggers.”

He covered his mouth with his free hand.

“Exactly,” Philip said. “No one will find him. Now stop giggling like a lunatic and help me _finish_.”

Thomas took a deep breath. “All right – but it was still your idea.”

“I _know_ that,” Philip barked, but Thomas could see him trying to stifle a peculiar grin in the lamplight. He supposed there were some things you had to laugh at, to survive them, and burying a dead third in the middle of the night might well be one of them.

“Let’s just get this over with and have some brandy,” Philip added. “Or you can make tea; it’s a bit chilly.”

Thomas giggled again. _It was chilly_ , Philip said, as if they’d gone out for a walk on a cool afternoon.

“You can make tea,” he teased, because being a Duke couldn’t matter much at a time like this, could it?

Philip sighed.


End file.
